The Red Line: History of the Veterinary and Settlement Border in Namibia, 1890s–1960s

This study offers a fascinating and surprising look at Namibia's history, narrated through the historical course of a border. Beginning with its beginnings as a temporary barrier against rinderpest in the late 19th century, the author illustrates the border's development up to the construction of a two-meter-high, 1,250-kilometer-long fence in the 1960s, which still separates northern and central Namibia today. The goal of this slow process was to separate both people and livestock on both sides of the border, as well as to create contrasts between modern and traditional, healthy and sick, European and African.